Andy Mitten column

Manchester United are wily operators in Europe. The Reds were chasing a tenth win in 11 Champions League away games, a staggering statistic considering how poor United’s results were on the Continent in the mid noughties.

Manchester United are wily operators in Europe. The Reds were chasing a tenth win in 11 Champions League away games, a staggering statistic considering how poor United’s results were on the Continent in the mid noughties.

This is not a vintage United side and they don’t attack with the abandon of the treble winners. Today’s United are effective, clinical and, such is their style away from home, it’s sometimes more fun watching the stands.

The Reds have visited Valencia, Bursa and Ibrox so far this season – all venues with enviable atmospheres.

Marseille was even better – a fiery Mediterranean cauldron to match the temper of local resident Eric Cantona at his worst. Or finest.

Cantona played for Marseille in the late 80s, just after the team he supported as a kid had been taken over by controversial businessman and politician Bernard Tapie.

He lavished his funds on the club from France’s second city as they lifted four consecutive league titles and boasted some of France’s best emerging talents: Deschamps, Desailly, Fabien Barthez and Jean Pierre Papin.

Cantona proved an imperfect fit, but Marseille were complemented by the Ghanian Abedi Pele, who was good enough to win Africa’s Ballon D’Or three times. Marseille were good enough to become the first French team to win the European Cup in 1993, a tainted victory as Tapie had been involved in domestic match-fixing the same season for which he was imprisoned.

Humility

Modern day Marseille have none of the stars of yore. There’s the arrogant Argentinian Gabriel Heinze, who at least showed some humility this week towards Manchester United, a club he engineered a move from in 2007. And they have Andre ‘Dede’ Ayew and Jordan Ayew, sons of Abedi Pele.

If they won the Champions League this season they’d be in exalted company – only three other players have collected a winner’s medal at the same club as their father: Paulo and Cesare Maldini at Milan, Manuel Sanchis and Manuel Jnr at Madrid and Carles and Sergio Busquets at Barcelona.

But Marseille are highly unlikely to win the Champions League this year.

The French champions sit third in a closely contested Ligue 1 where just 12 points separate the top 10 sides. Their top scorer has just six league goals and even the respected France Football magazine ran the headline ‘Boring Boring OM’ after their win against St Etienne at the weekend.

Like United, they were devoid of key personnel last night, not that injuries to the home side mattered to many of the 2,000 travelling United fans who spent the day enjoying the sunshine outside the bars of the Vieux Port.

Marseille is a working class football city blessed by a magical Mediterranean location, its white urban sprawl in brilliant contrast to the usually azure sky. There are parallels with Manchester, a second city boasting its country’s best-supported football team. Marseille average 53,000 noisy fans, but it was the Reds making the noise before the game with songs about the port’s most famous citizen – at least in Mancunian eyes – Cantona. The mood was good, though edgy.

It stayed like that inside the 60,000 capacity Velodrome. It may be open on three sides, but it remains one of the most atmospheric stadiums in world football, with various ultra groups of fans combining to make a din. The travelling Reds were in £60 seats surrounded by high fences, because objects were hurled over shorter barriers when United last played in Marseille in 1999-00.

Patrice Evra was booed whenever he touched the ball because he used to play for nearby Monaco and the home crowd remained vocal throughout, even in the dying minutes as they chased a vital, but elusive goal. United didn’t get a win or deserve a win, but there was quiet satisfaction with the result on the flight north to Manchester this morning.